1 month later: My Capstone Presentation

As the final piece of my internship, I modified, combined, refined, and beefed up the demonstrations and presentation  I gave at ITA, which I presented at Cornell on Tuesday.  The flyer is above, the powerpoint is here, and the presentation was filmed if you'd like to see it:  the youtube links are below for anyone who'd like to watch it, broken into 4 chunks, about 15 minutes each.   If you watch it and still have questions, or you don't want to watch it and still have questions, I'm more than happy to chat about any of this!!!

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

For those of you who saw my presentation, thank you so much for coming.  It meant a lot to have so many supportive faces in the audience.  Many thanks also to my parents, academic advisors, roommates, and everyone else who made this experience possible.

Week 9: And that's a wrap.

In my final week, I think my time was filled with good culminating experiences, ones that gave me closure on clinical sessions and admin projects alike. Here's the highlights: 

Day 1: The majority of my time was spent wrapping up my administrative projects and making sure my supervisors could continue what I was doing without losing too much momentum.  I created project training documents for the volunteers, spent most of the day sending emails/having meetings to clarify project details, and put together volunteers packets. With the orientation my goal was to lay a foundation to make the volunteers' experience meaningful, and this week was to make the logistics possible. Theoretically, I made it easy for the volunteers to come in, open their folder and have everything they need to complete the tasks assigned.

I also chatted briefly with both of ITA's drama therapists about the Playback Theatre session I attended on Sunday....which was awesome. If I ever come back to Chicago, I will definitely be attending that session again.  I was only able to stay for some short forms, but someday I'll come back and participate in a long form Playback session. Playback wikipedia

Day 2: a little more admin stuff, trained my first volunteer, and observed the last Drama Therapy sessions of my internship. I said goodbye and got choked up at some sincere "I'll miss you"s.  Last week and this week, I felt like I had gotten a grip on how I fit into the session and was able to fully participate and contribute to what the therapist was doing....ironically just in time to leave. As the therapist reminded me in our processing afterwards, though, better to learn how to do it now than never.

Day 3: My last music therapy observations. As with Wednesday's sessions, it was only the last couple weeks that I really felt I had a grip on how I could best contribute to the session (in this case it was about harmonizing in the right key or holding someone's instrument just so so that they could play it properly; in Wednesday sessions it was about jumping into improvisations or fully supporting yet redirecting someone's less than relevant scene suggestions.  Of course, all of that was just in time to leave.  There were more goodbyes, more "we'll miss you"s (this time from the staff, as most of the clients there are nonverbal). I will certainly miss working with the NDD population-I learned an immense amount from learning how to get in tune with someone who doesn't communicate in a traditional verbal way.

Day 4: Clinical meeting (more goodbyes and a lovely goodbye card from the staff) was a good last one to be a part of.  ITA is planning their 40th anniversary celebration event (that includes Dancing with the Stars judge Carrie Ann Inaba accepting an award, in person) and they needed a theme, so the whole staff brainstormed a little at the meeting, which was fun and creative. Nothing stuck quite yet, but it was a good brainstorm. I trained my second volunteer on projects between the clinical meeting and our all staff training, which was a neat presentation given by a Speech/Feeding Therapist at another clinic nearby. It was supposed to be about development of kids aged 0-3, which is really neat. When she handed out a copy of the slides I recognized many of the developmental milestones she was discussing from Piaget's stages of cognitive development (wikipedia). I was glad to see that I've retained at least some of my developmental psych knowledge I've learned at Cornell. The training ended up, based on staff questions, turning into a discussion about how a speech/feeding therapist would evaluate and assess children, which was also fascinating. She had some cool stories about babies and young children that had little control of their mouths going through therapy to gain more control of their muscular function, including some interesting thoughts about why teaching some kids with bad reflux and gagging how to spit things out can be so helpful.

Then I scrambled to finish the last of my work follow up and emails, had a wrap-up meeting with our executive director, and set up for my final presentation. My final presentation, presented to my supervisor and the other two MT interns in the time slot for our group supervision this week, was half about Drama Therapy (of which I can now say I have some concept)  and half about my reflections on this whole experience.  The powerpoint is here, but the visuals won't make much sense to you as they were to help guide my oral presentation.
 I filmed it, but for confidentiality reasons I can't share it because it has some client stories-   it's a pretty long presentation but if you're interested in I'm happy to walk through it with you.

Closure

For the last part of my presentation, I did an exercise I called "jewel box".  I created based on some suggested closure interventions written in Renée Emunah's Acting for Real: Drama Therapy Process, Techniques, and Performance  (which I highly recommend to anyone with the question "what is Drama Therapy?".  I read it based on the recommendation of a drama therapist I talked to in August, and courtesy of the drama therapist that founded ITA). In the exercise I pretended I had a gem in my hand for each of the following "jewels" I want to take with me, and asked the interns and my supervisor to pass the jewels to one another until they reached the "jewel box", which we "closed" together and I "packed up" to take with me into the rest of my personal and professional life. Each jewel had a little commentary or story and a person it was associated with, but for simplicity, confidentiality and brevity's sake, I'll just list them here.  The pictures on the side are a few from the presentation...feel free to interpret them how you see fit!

From Clients

•  Happiness at every turn
• Anchoring reality in a single concept 
• Variability 
• Say what you mean
• Use the client’s mode of communication
• Meet them where they’re at
• Facial expressions are individual. Patience will develop sensitivity.
• So much is through the eyes. Celebrate the small successes
• Drop everything and normalize
• Observing self destruction requires extra self care
• Music is a magic reactivator
• Directness works
• 8 weeks is just the beginning

From Staff

• Read the room. Adjust to it.
• Planning is not everything, and product certainly is not. Process is paramount.
• Use your strengths, and always strive to get better
• Use the theories. Start from there and build.
• Connection. Individual connection, is everything. Love your clients, and they will love themselves.
• Be purposeful in every detail, and love your job
• What does your client need? Create what they need if it’s not there.
• When in doubt, break it down. Presenting problem→ approach. Use your resources- including your peers.
• Efficiency. Trust yourself and just do it.
• Have confidence. Not knowing is okay. 
• Sense of community in the office is important to me
• Therapy is not fixing people’s problems….It’s not linear….It’s facilitated growth.

and most importantly,

• IT ALL DEPENDS ON THE CLIENT.  

Remember how I said this was going to be an opportunity I hoped would help me grow as a potential clinician and also as a human being?  I think this list exemplifies that that hope came true. After 338 hours  (including 80 clinical hours), I learned a thing or two.

The button on the whole adventure

Last night my roommates and I played "jewel box", as well, and I got to reflect on all of the great experiences I've had outside of ITA, as well. Since it's a "you'd have to be there to get it" thing, I'll spare you our long list of inside jokes, but I can tell you that our jewel box also contained lessons for my professional and personal life, everything from watching and supporting my roommates through their job searches to experiencing Chicago through culture to living, cooking, and doing laundry for myself.

Some last jewels: my list of Chicago adventures. It includes (and yes, I made a real list.  Does that surprise anyone?  Probably not.) 338 internship hours, 77 clinical hours, 2 academic lectures, 4 swing dance events, 3 music events, 10 theatre shows, 9 other cultural things I didn't know how to classify.

I am still thinking I want to do an MSW program after a year or two off of school adventuring abroad. Client work, this internship assured me, is where I'm headed.  The capacity in which I do that? That's for the next list of adventures.

CARYN: (smiling, closes jewel box with satisfaction. To no one in particular and everyone all at once:) Thanks for making this possible.

Week 7: Starting to stitch up loose ends

As is always the case, just as I feel like I'm settled in and got the rhythm down, it's almost time to leave.

A drop in the bucket
It's wild to think I have 4 days left of my internship, as I just got here. In the world of Creative Arts Therapy and psychotherapy in general, I've been here for a blink of an eye. Eight weeks is enough time to make some kinds of progress, sure, but in the long haul, psychological progress is slow and steady. Long standing therapeutic relationships are important for clients to really dig into their goals. 

The neurodevelopmentally disabled population is no exception- when there are neuron pathways being reprogrammed,  it takes some reinforcement. It's like learning a new dance move. You may have to try it over and over again, concentrating really hard each time, before that move becomes automatic.  Albeit on a different scale, a lot of the clients I am fortunate to interact with are learning new "moves": how to say hello, pressing a switch that acts as a communication device, sitting in a chair when they are asked, learning to shake hands without squeezing too hard.   For some, they are developing skills that are for them the same level of difficulty as learning a double pirouette-developé-arabesque ballet combination would be for me.  I can't learn that overnight, or even in 8 weeks (excuse the lack of ballet knowledge in that analogy).

The same may be said of the geriatric population I'm working with.  Their group goals for a group may be, for example, something like this: creating positive associations with the physical space, developing positive interpersonal relationships with others in the program, and working in physical and mental activity when possible.   The Drama Therapy sessions are meant to create a safe space where the clients will healthily activate their minds and bodies and ideally generalize their good experiences within session to the rest of their time in the facility/ the rest of their lives.  Again, that doesn't happen overnight.

Note: This is not all to say therapy must be long term. Plenty of groups happen on a drop-in basis, especially in hospital settings or day programs.   Those groups are effective, too, they are just shorter term.   Even  the example of a geriatric group I just talked about could be helpful and valuable to a senior who's only around for one session.  Impacts of the therapy, of course, are deeper and more potent when a client attends multiple sessions in a series. 

Termination
In any therapeutic relationship, stability and continuity is important, and the sense of both those things may be disturbed in someone leaves the group with little to no notice. Though my relationship with the clients has been relatively short, or perhaps it is even more important for that reason, this week I started the termination process.  In the case of the groups I'm observing, that process is short, a two week preparation for my absence involving telling the clients how much time I have left, reminding them at least a few times throughout a session that I will be leaving.



Snapshot: flexibility


Just a quick snapshot from one of our sessions this week. The day had already started out funky,and then one of our clients in an early session had a pretty urgent medical issue.  Everything stopped- music stopped, the nurse came in and all the aids turned their attention to him. In this particular case, there wasn't much anyone could do, just wait for it to pass. The experience shook me up for a few minutes, but mostly just made me think about the importance of flexibility.  Everyone was right there, ready to drop everything they were doing to make sure he was taken care of.  After the issue was resolved, we continued with the session.  The energy/pace had changed, so the therapist was flexible and adjusted.

Bring it back around
My big non-clinical project this week was a volunteer orientation. There is a nice arc/timeline to the volunteer coordinating part of my internship:
-Sent out emails to past volunteer inquiries/learned to respond to new ones
-Those inquiries became email correspondence, which became scheduling interviews
-Shadowed a volunteer interview
-Conducted a few volunteer interviews
-Coordinated volunteers for our Open House event
-Gathered and created tasks/projects for volunteers
-Created a volunteer orientation schedule/structure
-Conducted a volunteer orientation
-As follow up, I will be passing on my ongoing admin projects to incoming volunteers

I say it's a nice arc for one of the same reasons I loved rep-ing ITA at the resource fairs: teaching is the best way to learn. As I created the plan for orientation, I tried to ask myself what I'd want from this orientation. A way to make it meaningful for me (and hopefully for the volunteers being oriented) was a time to ask questions about creative arts therapy. When I first thought about adding that to the schedule, I thought "I can't answer questions on my own." But then I thought about how silly that was- I've been gathering answers to basic questions about CAT for seven weeks. Of course I can answer the basics, and refer out if anything I don't know comes up.  Turns out I've absorbed enough information over the course of the last two months that I knew all the answers to the questions the volunteers asked.   It felt great, as always, to lead a group, and even better because it was an experience for which I was given permission to create in a meaningful way.

Skills in all areas, for all areas
Though the orientation was entirely separate from my clinical observation, all experiences are interconnected. The other key part of the orientation is very what couldn't be written on paper- creating a comfortable environment where people feel empowered.  That is just as important in a volunteer orientation as it is in the therapy sessions I'm observing. 




Group Sup(ervision)
Remember how I was invited to bring a DT intervention to our Group Sup this week? I did. First the other two MT interns tried out what was on their mind. The first wanted to talk through how to create a song with a particular client group.  A lot of the fun leadership training/workshop/devising/strategic planning formats I've worked with were very helpful in that brainstorming session. Then the second intern tried out a music intervention she was developing that could be used with clients with apraxia. That was cool to see, too.  Then it was my turn.
 I talked to both of ITA's drama therapists about the national DT conference in Yosemite last week, and they both talked about a great workshop they went to about using the Hero's Journey in therapeutic practice. I talked to one of them about the details, and used that to create an abbreviated version to "test out" on the other interns. It went smoothly, and it was awesome to be offering something new to everyone the group. It felt great, as always, to lead a group, and even better because it was an experience for which I was given permission to create in a meaningful way.

The finishing touch
My wrap up project will be a presentation delivered during next week's supervision time slot. I got to choose my topic and I'm given any or all of the one hour time slot...I plan to talk about what I've learned from clients, supervisors, other staff members, the whole internship experience, and a slice of my current understanding about the field of DT. Stay tuned- I'll let you know how it goes!

Week 6: Out of Office Experiences

Alright, it’s time for some visuals. I have a terrible habit of never taking a photo record of what I do, so it won’t be photos, but my blog has lacked some color for the last few weeks, and that’s no way to be writing about a creative arts therapy internship.  Besides, this week was colorful; I spent a lot of time doing things out of the office! 

More cross modality geekiness…

In group supervision this week, we discussed scenarios the interns had observed this week, how the other interns had incorporated  or might have incorporate Music Therapy into them, and our ideas for continuing to work on therapeutic goals for that client population with a cross modality approach. It was a pretty lively discussion, and we all geeked out about the possibilities.  It was a great moment.  Next week we’re doing hands on application of cross modality ideas, and we’re all bringing in potential interventions (activities we may use to address a therapeutic goal in session) to try out on one another! My supervisor invited me to bring in a drama therapy intervention or two, so I’ll get to try something out.  I’m psyched. 

Teaching is the best way to learn. 

This is the poster from the fair where I represented ITA at a table on Saturday. 

 Turns out I love talking to people. This is no surprise to myself or anyone else, but I was reminded on Saturday how much I love teaching people about things I’m into. Creative Arts Therapy is exciting and not a lot of people know about it.  I love telling everyone about who ITA is and what we do, sharing my knowledge of our organization even if I’ve only been there a few weeks. Talking to other people also helps me recognize how much I’ve learned about CAT and ITA in those weeks, though, and even more since the last fair I went to on ITA’s behalf. My explanations were more comprehensive and I did less of the “I’m not sure, let’s ask so-and-so” in response to questions. The more I practice my “elevator speeches”,  the more I understand myself about what CAT is, and how each of the modalities can be used. 

Money’s the worst.

Furthermore, the fair reminded me of how much I would like to work for an equal opportunity organization.  ITA does great work. There are financial aid applications available, and we take Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance (if you’re working with a licensed, not just board certified, therapist).  I’m realizing how important it is to me to do work that does not turn people down based on inability to pay or, better yet, offers services targeted at a financially disadvantaged population. One of the parts I loved about my internship last summer was being able to give access to services people may not otherwise be able to afford, and ITA has a similar accessibility. Unfortunately, for an organization like the former to function, there needs to be funding from an outside source, sometimes private but usually from the federal government.

Dance: It’s like talking, but with your body.

On Tuesday I went down to Northwestern Memorial Hospital (cool connection: my parents  did residencies at Northwestern when they were in med school) and observed ITA’s Dance Movement Therapist in session with a Parkinson’s Disease patient and caregiver monthly support group. I observed her session, and then the social worker who ran the group invited me to stay for the rest of the afternoon.  This was the schedule:

10:30 a.m. – 11:15 a.m.  Dance Therapy

It was awesome. I had an absolute blast and was reminded again how much I love dancing, music, and human connection through movement. 

11:15 a.m.- 12:00 p.m.   Physical Therapy

As much as I’ve heard about people having PT, growing up around doctors, having family friends who are PTs or OTs, I’d never seen PT in action.  This one was kind of like an exercise group, with specific, prescribed movements clearly focused on developing certain muscle groups.

12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.    Lunch & Discussion Groups

The group split into caregivers and everyone else; I ended up talking to a really amazing guy who recently moved back to Chicago from overseas after his diagnosis.  I’m sure we were able to have a more open, full, honest conversation because of the connections we’d make an  hour previously in the Dance Therapy session.

1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.   Depression and Parkinson’s Disease Presentation

2 pharmacists presented on the relationship and overlap between the two, specifically from a pharmaceutical perspective. This was followed by an “Ask The Pharmacist” where people could ask anything they wanted. The majority of the questions ended up being about alternative treatments for Parkinson’s and was really interesting (did you know there’s a study being conducted right now on the effectiveness of cinnamon on reducing Parkinson’s progression?)

After the DMT session, the dance therapist talked to me a little about the goals of the group, etc and told me staying to watch physical therapy would give me a better  understanding of the different aspects of the self being addressed by different therapies.  She was right.  The way she explained it, both DMT and PT use the body to improve aspects of the self. Both are scientifically based and proven, they are just different. 

PT targets the physical aspects of a patient. Patients are given regimented movements and specific sequences which improve specific physiological aspects of person. This makes it easier for people to quantitatively calculate benefits; range of motion can have measurable increases, strength can remain constant or improve, etc. 

DMT is harder to quantify,  as it, in this case, targets the mental and emotional aspects of a client.  There are situations in which DMT may be used in a more PT-like setting, to improve coordination or physical ability, etc, but this group uses DMT in collaboration with PT for a holistic approach to address mental, emotional, and physical aspects.  Especially when many clients have some involuntary movements as a result of their diagnosis, many experience negative mental/emotional changes as their Parkinson’s progresses. Locus of control may shift to be more external as they lose their ability to control their own bodies, and a feeling of helplessness is not uncommon as people become more physically disadvantaged.  Dance movement therapy, then, can serve as an opportunity to accept their own bodies and come to terms with their disease’s effects, while physical therapy improves their physical ability. The mind-body connection allows both therapies to help with each other.

The goals for the DMT session in this group included:

1) Self Expression: A slogan that ITA uses is “When words are not enough, the arts can help.”  It’s true- sometimes people need to communicate what they’re feeling through movement.  It’s commonly accepted that “talking it out” can help someone to psychologically work through an issue simply by verbally processing. The same phenomenon occurs when someone uses movement as their mode of communication, kinesthetically processing and “dancing it out”. 

2) Witnessing: In talk therapy, often all people need another human being to listen to them and respond. In dance language, watching someone move is “listening” to them dance, and moving together with them, whether that’s mirroring or having a movement conversation, is response. 

and 

3) Body Acceptance through Dance: The other key part of witnessing is providing a space where it’s okay to move however your body wants to move. When everyone is allowed to “free dance” and the therapist sets the guidelines (sometimes verbally, sometimes by modeling) that all motion is okay, encouraged, and beautiful, people believe it.  The more you are told, especially as someone with a disease that affects motor coordination, that your movements are acceptable, beautiful, and contribute to the group, the more you realize that you, too, are acceptable, beautiful, and contribute to the group. 

We so often associate psychotherapy with talk therapy. Dance movement therapy, it turns out, is not that different structurally, it just uses movement instead of speech as the primary mode of communication.  The same can be said of the other creative arts modalities: same psychotherapeutic goals and outcomes, different technique.

 Oh yeah, regular clinical time, too....

I didn't even talk much about my regular clinical sessions in this post.  They both went well, and I am continuing to develop relationships with the clients. Per my supervisor's request, I started "taking more initiative" in my Thursday MT sessions, and I have a more active role there now.  In supervision we went over the data for the group, and I got to practice assessing whether or not clients had met their goals.  In my Wednesday DT sessions, more of the same storytelling/improvising, and I'm learning to analyze more of how the drama therapist creates the comfortable, free flowing environment so similar to the "free dance" concept and so vital to his group goals for social interaction.

One of the clients in the geriatric facility I work in told goodbye, that he was excited to see me next week on my way out, another at a different session said "oh no" when she learned I had two more weeks... just as soon as I'm getting to know the clients well and get attached, I'll be leaving.  That's why I'm thinking so seriously about this field, though: the clients, the relationships.   I'll be sad to leave but grateful to have rubbed noses with some great clients and therapists.

Week 5: Everything is relevant

Context and Carry-overs

Unsurprisingly, my work from last summer at my internship in Austin is coming in handy during this experience.  I'm familiar with the format of the databases, software, etc. In the world of social services, the basic needs for administrative systems are similar across the board. Every organization needs a way to track other social services programs in the area: the services they offer, their direct contact person, the relationship between the organization and other service providers. They need to have quick access to concise information that says "this is how x place can help my client". I have already been around that kind of system at Project Transitions, so organizing database information for ITA is more efficient for me as I know what therapists will be looking for as they search for referrals/business connections.  Context is everything- I know the purpose for the work I'm doing with database updates, and therefore I can do the work in a more helpful way.  I'm discovering that I am what my roommate Molly likes to call a "full-context communicator"; I am more comfortable, motivated, and I can do better work when I understand completely how my job  fits into a wider context, how it contributes to a "big picture".


CAT Mashup 

In our group supervision on Friday (a one hour a week time slot set aside for professional development for me and the 2 clinical interns in the office), the clinical interns discussed their challenges with integrating their modality (music therapy) into other sessions that they were experiencing. My brain went back into creative possibilities mode and I started cranking out suggestions of how music could fit into their dance and drama therapy sessions. I again experienced that as the part I love most about Creative Arts Therapy- coming up with creative solutions to achieve a client's therapeutic goals.  I am glad my arts background is in theatre, too, and that I have some directing experience; a theatre production is in a sense  "cross modality" . Theatre is a marriage of the art mediums used in CAT: drama, visual arts, music, and dance/movement. As a theatre person  and a director, I've had exposure to all of those elements, and especially their synthesis. Incorporating music into a dance session or drama session is therefore a natural combination. The lines between modalities, then, are blurred for me. It's hard to separate in my mind a "music therapy approach" versus a "drama therapy approach" because 1) I haven't had the training and exposure to fully understand what approaches fall in either category, but also 2) if DT is using theatre techniques as therapeutic interventions and music is a commonly used theatre technique, then music in a drama therapy session is simply DT in my mind. It makes me excited to learn more about what is technically classified as a DT strategy as opposed to DMT (Dance/Movement Therapy), MT or even AT (Art Therapy).  Right now they are all entangled in my brain in the umbrella category of CAT.

Client-Centered

That entanglement manifested itself in our clinical meeting this week, as well; I was suggesting a DT strategy for a client enrolled in MT. The treating therapist gently corrected me and  told me that was not the approach they were using. It was a good reminder to hearken back to the client's wants.  If a client wants to use a specific art form in his sessions, as that was the modality he/she signed up for, that is the appropriate approach. I have to remember that just because a strategy from another modality may work, that doesn't mean it's the right choice for that client.  Having other modalities at ITA is helpful, and there is always a cross-modality solution when appropriate, but that solution may not be applicable 100% of the time.


Chi-Town Adventures

I haven't talked much about my outside-of-work adventures; I was considering them somewhat separate from the credit-bearing experience I'm having in the office and in client sessions.  I can't continue that division, though;  my adventures in Chicago are integral to my personal and professional growth, too. As a future drama therapist, I will draw upon experiences on and off the clock to inform my work.  Cultural events, theatre productions, even conversations with friends involved in other fields will all help me understand people and serve as inspiration for creative solutions in sessions.   That being said, I want to recap a couple of the really awesome opportunities I've had since arriving in Chicago:

-King Lear at Chicago Shakespeare Theater on Navy Pier
   It was a great show, filled with some pretty incredible theatrical moments. I was also lucky to go with my roommates, both of whom love to critique theatre, so we had some great critical discussions about the show afterwards.  The actor playing Lear did an enthralling performance of a descent into insanity/dementia.
A tidbit to take with into DT: lighting as a mood setter. Of course lighting can change the tone of a scene- any director or lighting designer would assure you that is true. I had never actively thought about that in relation to therapy, though.  One of the scenes in Lear had a warm yellow light wash, and I felt in myself an immediate physical relaxation in response.  I thought to myself , "if I had a client that was high strung and, say, highly anxious, this lighting would be perfect to start off a session more relaxed."
   One more tidbit: I will never throw away important business cards.  On my Cornell LEADS trip in April 2013, my group toured Chicago Shakes with the Exec Director, who told us to let him know if we were ever in the area and looking for tickets to a show.  I dug up his business card (thank goodness for my pack rat, save-everything mentality) and emailed him- to which he replied he would comp 2 tickets for me :) Yay for working connections!

-Shedd Aquarium
   Just livin' the Chicago life. It's a must see, and over the 6 hours I was there with Erin Vick, a fellow Cornellian who's in the area doing her student teaching (Cornell is everywhere), we saw some fish, touched some stingrays, watched some dolphins jump 10 feet in the air, and learned that sea otters eat a quarter of their body weight every day. It was worth it, and if I ever find myself living here I'll definitely go back.

-Swing Dancing at NU
   If you know me, you know this is essential to my self care and mental health.  Luckily, I am nearby a dance community, a criterion I will seek out wherever I end up.

-The Johns at the Mayer Kaplan Theater
   Written by a Chicago Resident specifically for a Chicago Northshore suburban audience, this was play that blew my mind about sex trafficking in Chicago. The talkback was with the Dreamcatcher organization, a nonprofit that provides services to victims of sex trafficking in the Chicago area. I learned a ton about the issue, saw again the power of social justice theatre, and talked to some awesome employees from Dreamcatcher about their work.


This continues to be an adventure, good work experience, and a unique opportunity to be required to reflect on a regular basis; that is all to say I'm getting a lot out of this.  5 weeks down, 3 to go!

Week 4: Creative Arts Therapy High

Proof: there's lots of ways to practice DT
I had a meeting with the other Drama Therapist on Tuesday that works for ITA (not the one I shadow) to chat about DT. We talked about the advantages of an Alternative Training DT registration track, her experience with the at-risk-youth population, and a little bit about her method of practicing DT. Everything she said was confirmation of why I want to get involved in DT: holistic approach to people, allowing imaginative practice in the healing process, using theatre in a process-not-product focused manner,  a small community of collaborative and creative professionals. We're going to meet again to  talk more about the logistics of what a DT session looks like, since we got sidetracked talking about the best way to get the right experience with the right populations to figure out what kind of therapy I want to practice.  The little we talked about the logistics, though, was promising. It was, as I expected, different than the drama therapist I shadow but equally as valuable. She practices, I've gathered, with a more embodied approach. She uses more movement, and the practice of DVT, developmental transformations (http://www.developmentaltransformations.com/), a really awesome theory and practice that uses embodiment and is becoming more widely used as of late in the DT field.  It's something I'm definitely interested in looking into for future practice.

Open House
At the end of our Open House, our Practice Manager turned to me, saw me smiling, and said, "You're on a Creative Arts Therapy high, aren't you?"

Yep. I was. Our open house was interactive; we had demonstrations of the 4 different CAT modalities happening simultaneously for almost the full five hours of the event.  I spent a little bit of time in all four, seeing not only examples of interventions our therapists might use with a clients but also hearing their explanations of why they might use those interventions, answering questions along the way. I participated in a group movement exercise similar to our movement warm ups in my Voice and Movement course, and a drama imagination game similar to generating exercises the Here and Now cast used for our devised show last spring.  I saw a group of adults create artwork carousel-style, and I listened to one of our Neurologic Music Therapists talk about the advantages of musical entrainment for fine motor coordination.  I was grinning ear to ear for the majority of the time.

So there I was, surrounded by these mental health professionals from the area who were experiencing CAT, many for the first time  (the event was geared toward professionals who were interested in seeing what some of their own clients might be involved in should they refer them to ITA).  We were all nodding, smiling, and having our own ah-ha moments.  We were all on a CAT high. Even better, I lost track of time. I was so engrossed in the demos, 2pm became 6pm.  I sat with our Dance Movement Therapist for about an hour talking about how to get into the field, and 6pm became 7pm, clean up time. I went home glowing.


At our clinical meeting this week we had client presentations, where a therapist (in this case our clinical interns) gives a presentation about a particular client including their diagnosis, presenting problems, therapeutic goals, and intervention strategies being used to address the problems. IT WAS SO COOL.  I got to hear real presentations about real people with real psychological diagnoses and see how their treatment plans are organized. The coolest part: I could see myself doing that for a very long time.  How could I ever get bored of an ever changing, complex human being with evolving problems and diagnoses? How could I ever tire of coming  up with creative solutions, individualized to that complex individual, to help them improve their quality of life, especially after a significant trauma or other problem that interferes with their opportunity to have the unimpeded options so many people have? I could feel good about that job.  I could go to bed feeling as though I was intellectually stimulated and like I was doing important work and doing at least a little bit of my part to give back to the world and its people after they have given me so much.

Takeaways
So what did I learn out of all of that whirlwind of a week? I've solidified a direction for grad school.  MSW programs, here I come. After I take some time abroad (1 year? 2 years?), I'll apply to grad school for Master's in Social Work. If I'm still interested in becoming a Creative Arts Therapist at that point (which I probably will be- I don't see my passion for theatre, arts,  psychology and client work shifting all that much), I'll do an Alternative Track certification so I can practice as a licensed counselor and a drama therapist.   DT is my path of choice to pay it forward, and it's a job I could love and feel good about.

 Internship is already half over- here's to a great rest of the adventure!

Week 3: Rejuvinated, Reenergized, Reframed

At the end of last week, I was still adjusting to a new workplace, a new living space, a new working pace....a new life. I was a little grumpy. I had spent a lot of time in front of a computer, and I didn't feel connected to people in the office.  After careful reflection and reframing, and in the spirit of the optimism I pride myself on, I would like to fill this blog post space with incredible opportunities I have experienced in the last week:

Interviews
I am now in charge of interviewing potential volunteers for ITA. I had another interview this week. I am learning not only how to interview someone else, but also how to be interviewed.  I've only ever been on the interviewee side, so I've only ever seen one person being interviewed: me. Now I have the opportunity to see other people on the interviewee side and learn from them.  I am understanding on a whole new level the importance of dressing up, firm handshakes, clear and concise responses. It's much like casting a show, a comparison that I am grateful to have as it is invaluable to have previously been on the "other side of the table".

Recurring Clinical Sessions
I am returning week after week to the same group Drama Therapy and Music Therapy sessions.  That means I'm forming relationships with clients, which makes it so much easier to be fully integrated into the groups.  The longer I am in the groups, the more comfortable the clients and I get with each other, and the more I learn about what therapeutic techniques are useful for what behaviors/temperments/etc.

Surrounded by Psychology
I work in an office full of people with masters degrees in psychology fields. Like any other field, psychology has jargon, and I am immersed in it. I am learning to use terms like "perseveration" and "self-stimulating behavior" and "therapeutic intervention".  I am learning the process of therapeutic assessment, the first step to planning therapeutic treatment goals and sessions.  Every specialty has a language, and I am getting exposure to the language of therapy.

Resource Fair
I went this week with our executive director to the Evanston Land Area Network Resource Fair to represent ITA at an information table. I got to see all sorts of social work related organizations, talk to their directors, and answer questions other people (mostly other social workers/counselors in the area) had about ITA. I saw in person a lot of the places where ITA therapists refer clients, and I have some hands on experience with how networking can be done in the social work world.  AND I am now #ITAfamous....this picture made it to the Facebook page that day :) Check it out (you have to scroll to the post from Oct 16):

The format was familiar, too- the fair was set up just like the activities fair at Cornell!

Catch-all
I'm getting a big variety of experience as my time spent in the office is spent being a catch-all for whatever needs to get done: this week I did everything from hanging a new bulletin board in our Art Room (for client art/ special use in sessions) to creating visuals for a children's song for one of our music therapists to use in a session, to cleaning up a paint spill, to working on a professional development calendar for the staff.  I'm getting to learn what kind of work I like/don't like and bulk up my list of skills (which now includes applying corkboard putty to a concrete wall.  It's more difficult than it sounds).

Independence
Though I was freaked out a little at first that no one was checking in on me on a daily basis, I am so glad I am independent in the office.  I have stuff to do, we all do, and if I need help/have questions, I have to figure out on my own where to find the answers. There's no answers in the back of the textbook, I just have to do it on my own.

Living by Northwestern
I went to a few lectures this week (one related to compassion practices and their influence on neuropsychology and the other on global engagement.....both incredible) and a theatre production put on by the NW Engineering department.  There is always something big happening here, and NW frequently brings in experts and top researchers, so even though I spend all day with a CAT (Creative Arts Therapy) organization, my time here can be spent doing really awesome academic things related or unrelated to psychology!


Look at all those blessings.
I talked to one of my academic advisors earlier this week and went back to Cornell this weekend for homecoming. I'm so glad I did both of those; talking to everyone there confirmed to me that this is a pretty amazing opportunity and I came back re-energized, ready to jump back into the world of ITA and Chicago!